Mindbroken
by Inks Inc
Summary: Heartbreak is painful. Mindbreak is terrifying. One-Shot.


Hey! Thanks for dropping back in, I know I've been MIA. Like I said, RL has been very tough for me lately and as a result and for the first time in my life, I've struggled with my mental health. Things are looking up and they're falling into place, so I'll be writing more as the days go by! This little drabble serves two purposes in that it allows me to ease myself back in without following an established plot and it's a little slice of therapy! Thanks for all your messages, I know I've not been able to reply but I appreciate them all the same and your patience. I will be updating my stories soon.

Katie x

* * *

 _Look at you. Just look at you. Your hair? Your face? Hideous._

Frantically, I grab the nearest brush and rake it through my tousled mop of hair. It's lank, damp and utterly disgusting. That's what happens when you don't get out of bed all day. When you can't get out of bed all day. The brush isn't helping any. Panic bubbles in my cramp filled stomach as I dash to the shower in a fleeting burst of energy. I can't let him see me like this, I can't let him see me like this, I can't let him see…

 _You think that's gonna help? Really? It's a miracle you need, sweetie, not a shower._

Tears prick my eyes as I lather my hair in sweet scented strawberry shampoo. Breathing it in, my memories flutter at the edges of my mind. I've used the same brand of shampoo since grade school and it brings me back to better times. Times where my mind was my own. The tears spill down my cheeks and are quickly consumed by the roaring downpour of scalding water. My one-time energy boost is fading, and my legs are still caked in stubble, my armpits a small forest. He's been gone a week and bathing has proven too much of a commitment.

 _He's going to take one look at you and run. He could have anyone. Why would he want you? Why would anyone want you?_

I slide slowly down the tiled shower wall, the chronic fatigue I can no longer battle easily winning the war of dependence. A strangled sob is deafened by the hissing jet stream as I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. I was never like this before. Ever. I breezed through life without a care in the world. I dealt with the setbacks as they came without freezing inside, without dying inside. But, overnight, I changed. Now I can't go to the store without panicking that the clerk is laughing at my poorly proportioned body, my mismatched clothes or my mud coloured hair. I can't answer the phone because the sound of my squeaky, highly pitched voice disgusts me. I used to think myself thin, now I know I'm repulsively obese. I used to think myself interesting, now I know I'm tearjerkingly boring. Worst of all though, is the tiredness. The never-ending, eye-fluttering exhaustion.

 _Exhausted? How can you be exhausted? You don't do anything. You barely even exist. Pathetic._

That's true. I used to do everything, lived in the fastlane and loved every minute of it.

But that all changed as soon as Ray got sick.

That all ended the minute he died.

 _Everyone dies. Everyone. What makes him or you so special? He wasn't even your real father._

Grief, nine and a half months old, consumes my treacherous body and I shake with it. He will be back in less than twenty minutes and I'm a hairy, grotesque wreck and I can't do anything about it. Literally. I cannot move. I am frozen to the spot. I never understood that phrase until recently, how any able-bodied person could be frozen to any such spot. But now I do. Because I'm frozen to this shower floor.

 _There are people with real illnesses in the world. Get over it. Get over yourself._

My voice, so harsh and unrecognisable, snarls every word at me. It's like a pre-recorded version of myself that's embedded in my brain. I can never turn it off. I can never reprogram it or control it. Whenever I'm close to feeling any way at peace, that play button hits and I'm right back to square one. My throat aches with the sobs I can't stop. There are suds in my ears, old clumps of mascara in my eyelashes. I am disgusting, a mess.

 _What are you going to do when he leaves you? Because he will. And soon. Very soon._

That thought, that fact, fills me with such dread that my abdomen swells with it. Pain rips through me, nausea threatens. Terror. The constant terror of the day he walks out the door fills me. I won't cope. I can't cope. When he goes that will be the end of me, I won't be able to-

"Ana?"

Jesus Christ, he's early. I don't get the chance to even try to move, to wipe my eyes. Not that I could have, anyway. The bathroom door creaks open and a small utterance wafts in as the billowing steam hits him in the face. The curtain is pulled back and there he is. Perfection. Utter perfection. In his crisp white shirt, he looks like an angel. Shame and self-loathing pierces me as he assess the situation and I wait for him to throw his eyes up to heaven and lament having such a batshit crazy girlfriend. Seattle's most eligible bachelor does not need this shit.

But then he's beside me and he's turning down the temperature of the water, pulling the hose from the wall so that its in his hand. He's crouching at my side and parting my matted hair with gentle hands, running a soothing stream of water through my roots. Fully clothed, he's quickly drenched. I part my cracked lips to protest but he silences them with a gentle kiss, ignoring my paint-stripping breath. Sitting down, he pulls me onto his lap and holds me tight as the tears flow and flow. The suds are washed clean from my hair and I'm in his arms, lifted bodily from my watery prison.

I finally find my voice.

"My legs," I whisper in shame, "They're hairy, I haven't shaved…"

He glances down at them and without warning, kisses each stubbly calf gently, his lips soft and kind.

"Christian," I protest weakly, "I'm not-"

"In this alone."

….


End file.
